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Old 03-17-2006, 02:13 PM   #181
Thetargos
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Registered: Mar 2003
Location: Mexico City
Distribution: Fedora, Ubuntu & Mint
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I must admit I'm not familiar with SoundBlaster 16 class hardware and ALSA on modern 2.6.x kernels. If everything is in place, with modprobe.conf and everything, the next thing to try is to see if the modules are actually loaded, you can try and check:

Code:
/sbin/lsmod | grep snd
If you see the modules loaded (that'd be excellent!), all you have left to do is set the volume values and pretty much that would be it, so if you have the mdoules, try running alsamixer.

If for any reason the modules are loaded, but you can't run alsamixer or get an error saying that there are no cards, check what do you see in /proc/asound files, especially the cards and pcm files.
 
Old 03-23-2006, 08:59 PM   #182
big_manel
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I GOT IT!

Man! I really am glad! I thought I'd never make it...

I had several problems to overcome, some specific to the card, others kernel related. I'll post all here in case someone has similar problems:

1- My SB16 card does not seem to be PnP, so, the correct ports, irqs and DMAs must be passed to the module. Also, the isapnp option *must* be set to 0 (omitting the option is no good, it must be explicit). This way I was able to load the module (it would refuse to load if the above conditions were not met). Also besides the hardware setting I set the 'enable' option to 1. I didn't try it with 0 but I have a feeling it would not have worked!

2- For some reason, the install of the new modutils (2.6 kernel) did not update the /sbin location (as in moving the old binnaries to .old and installing symlinks there). This location is where the alsautils get their module binnaries. Fixing this allowed to run alsaconf without modinfo errors, but it did not detect my card (possibly again because it is not PnP)
That was not a big deal; I could load the module and see the card in /proc/asound/cards; the worst was that I could not run alsamixer!! Or any other util, for that matter (aplay, amixer, amidi...). They all failed with some sort of a 'no device error'! But the card was right there in /proc/asound/card0!!

3- The breakthrough: I recently upgraded the kernel, from 2.4.28 to 2.6.15.5. All went well except for this ALSA prob. What I didn't know (but found out the hard way!) was that devfs has been removed from kernels since the 2.6.13 release. As I did not install it externally, or udev, I had no device managing! This was tough to figure! People who use mainstream distros need not worry about this problem as it comes already chewed for them; but I run an almost custom system, it was easy to overlook this issue (I know... the removal of devfs *is* described in the kernel Changes doc, but I'm only human... :P). Anyway, I think that many of the cries for help all over the web (for alsamixer snd_ctl_open funtion error) may be due to this problem. Hope this helps!
Anyway, I installed udev and: tadaaaa! alsamixer! and then... Music! It's these small gratifications that make it worth messing with the penguin! OK, I know there are lots of gurus out there that wouldn't even have the problem in the first place, but I was able to solve it! I still have a grin on my face! (please share the moment with me Thetargos, you were of great help! Credit is also due to Clemens Ladisch from the alsa-user mailing list)

As a bonus :

I was able to build the monolythic kernel, with built-in sound (in fact, when I installed udev I had already gone built-in). The only thing I needed to do for the 'module' to load correctly along with the kernel was passing its options at the boot line (through lilo). More specifically, I added an append line to lilo.conf like the following:
Code:
append= "snd-sb16.isapnp=0 snd-sb16.irq=5 snd-sb16.port=0x220 ..."
Although the options are just called isapnp, irq and port, the snd-sb16 has to prefix all option names for the kernel to know to which of its millions of pieces you are talking to (this is where the input from Clemens Ladisch came in handy). After rebooting the system will behave as if you had loaded the snd-sb16 module. And it works!

Thanks all, hope this helps someone out!

big_manel

Last edited by big_manel; 03-23-2006 at 09:08 PM.
 
Old 04-01-2006, 12:12 PM   #183
intermod
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Registered: Oct 2003
Location: Pleasanton, CA USA
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Also got the same message.

Code:
root@reflector1 alsa-driver-1.0.10]# alsamixer
alsamixer: function snd_ctl_open failed for default: No such device

[root@reflector1 alsa-driver-1.0.10]# /sbin/lsmod | grep soundcore
soundcore               6116   7  (autoclean) [snd emu10k1 sound]

[root@reflector1 alsa-driver-1.0.10]# /sbin/lspci
00:0a.0 Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 08)
00:0a.1 Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 08)

Code:
[root@reflector1 alsa-driver-1.0.10]# cat /proc/pci
PCI devices found:
  Bus  0, device   0, function  0:
    Host bridge: Intel Corp. 430TX - 82439TX MTXC (rev 1).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
  Bus  0, device   1, function  0:
    ISA bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ISA (rev 1).
  Bus  0, device   1, function  1:
    IDE interface: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 IDE (rev 1).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
      I/O at 0xe000 [0xe00f].
  Bus  0, device   1, function  2:
    USB Controller: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 USB (rev 1).
      IRQ 5.
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
      I/O at 0xd800 [0xd81f].
  Bus  0, device   1, function  3:
    Bridge: Intel Corp. 82371AB/EB/MB PIIX4 ACPI (rev 1).
      IRQ 9.
  Bus  0, device   9, function  0:
    Ethernet controller: Lite-On Communications Inc LNE100TX (rev 32).
      IRQ 5.
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
      I/O at 0xd400 [0xd4ff].
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe7000000 [0xe70000ff].
  Bus  0, device  10, function  0:
    Multimedia audio controller: Creative Labs SB Live! EMU10k1 (rev 8).
      IRQ 9.
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.  Min Gnt=2.Max Lat=20.
      I/O at 0xd000 [0xd01f].
  Bus  0, device  10, function  1:
    Input device controller: Creative Labs SB Live! MIDI/Game Port (rev 8).
      Master Capable.  Latency=32.
      I/O at 0xb800 [0xb807].
  Bus  0, device  11, function  0:
    VGA compatible controller: S3 Inc. 86c764/765 [Trio32/64/64V+] (rev 68).
      IRQ 12.
      Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xe0000000 [0xe3ffffff].
I was guessing that something was not loaded. I rebooted and the mixer is working fine now.

intermod
 
  


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